I blogged Machsom Watch in the earliest days of Dove's Eye View - now they've made the news: Jewish grandmothers patrol West Bank checkpoints - Yahoo! News.
Over the years, Machsomwatch has recorded a long list of checkpoint incidents: babies stillborn to mothers held up in queues, sick patients denied passage to hospitals, arguments that ended in Palestinians shot, food rotting on the way to market, students missing their final exams and bridegrooms their weddings.
The
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Jerusalem says there are 528 permanent and temporary checkpoints in the West Bank, 40 percent more than a year ago.Most are not between the West Bank and Israel but between West Bank towns and villages, a fact that makes anti-occupation Israelis and Palestinians doubt the Israeli government's contention that their primary purpose is security.
"The idea is to make life so unpleasant and so uncomfortable for them that they just give up and leave, emigrate to an Arab country, to Canada, wherever they can go," said Nomi Lalo, another veteran of Machsomwatch.
I wonder what made AP choose to run the story now? Well, it's fruitless to speculate. I am glad to see this story.
Reader Maloof notes that Nicholas Kristof calls for open dialogue on Israel in the United States. He points out that Israelis themselves say things in the pages of Haaretz that no mainstream American politician or pundit would dare whisper.
A shift in the wind? I am not holding my breath.
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